


Lame duck

by Hypatia_66



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Begging, Challenge Response, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 05:51:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16528622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypatia_66/pseuds/Hypatia_66
Summary: LJ Short Affair challenge. Prompts: grumble, doubt, whiteIllya is undercover - and under a very unsympathetic eye





	Lame duck

The decidedly grubby individual they’d seen near the entrance to their hotel the day before was now sitting crouched on the beach steps strumming a guitar and looking, if possible, grubbier than ever. As a dark, elegantly-suited man approached him, he looked up and held out his hat, ducking his head in a gesture of supplication. The other man stopped, put a hand in his pocket and, throwing some change into the hat, passed on.

The guitar player rummaged in the torn lining of the hat, fished out the coins, looked round and spat angrily. Evidently there hadn’t been much change in those elegant pockets.

“Looks like he won’t get more than bread crumbs with that,” Jerry remarked. “If the guy was going to give something, he could have spared a note, surely?” He had spared one himself the day before, behind Julie’s back.

 “If that dirty little guy played a different song occasionally, he might do better,” said Julie indifferently. Begging was one of the deadlier sins in her book. Especially when it involved clearly able-bodied young men. He was white, too. Why didn’t he have a job? What’s more, he appeared to be blood brothers with an even more disreputable band of derelicts who probably stole food from the bins outside hotel kitchens.

Of course, if she had taken the trouble to read up the history of the country she was visiting she might have realised why. It was very cheap for tourists - that was all she knew or cared about. That there was a repressive and corrupt regime, she had no doubt and less interest; that there were no jobs wasn’t her problem.

The guitar player lurched to his feet and limped away on dirty feet, looking down at the pitiful contribution in his hand.

There _had_ been a note, just not a currency note. It read, “Tonight. Promenade. 10.”

<><><> 

Napoleon strolled back across the promenade to his hotel and went up to his room to prepare for the evening’s activities, including dinner, and wondered whether his disreputable partner was getting something to eat. Illya was a good actor but after a week or two in the guise of a beggar, he looked convincingly and unhealthily down-and-out. Napoleon hoped he wasn’t starving.

The sun was getting low; the beach was emptying; Julie and her husband packed up their belongings and made their way back to their hotel. They were about to climb the steps up to the foyer when Jerry spotted something odd about the bushes at the side and stopped to look more closely.

“Hey, you!” he called.

Julia looked round. “I hope you’re not talking to me,” she said, quite ready to grumble after what had been a more boring day than she had expected from this trip.

“No, dear. There’s someone asleep in these bushes… hey, you there,” he repeated and pulled the branches apart to see who it was. “Oh, it’s that guitar guy…” he said, bending to shake him and stood up, shaken himself.  “He’s hurt – there’s blood,” he said.

“Oh, Jerry, leave him. He’ll have been in a fight – don’t get involved.”

“I can’t do that, honey. He’s a fellow human being. He needs help.”

“Oh, you. I’m going to take a shower – you deal with it.” And with that, his wife continued up the steps into the hotel. A man in a white evening jacket smiled at her as he came out, and she dimpled and patted her hair a little flirtatiously. “Didn’t I see you earlier – down on the beach?”

“Oh, did you?”

“When that dirty little man was playing the guitar? You gave him some money.”

“Ah, yes. You’re staying here, too?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Is your husband not with you?”

“Oh, Jerry has found one of his lame ducks lying in a bush down there.”

“Lame ducks?”

“Actually, it’s that little dirty guy… oh…”

The man left her mid-sentence and plunged down the steps to where Jerry was kneeling. “What’s happened?” he said, joining him.

“It’s the little guitar player. Someone’s given him quite a bump – we ought to get a doctor, wouldn’t want …”

“No, we wouldn’t. Why don’t I stay with him while you go and get the hotel doctor? Then you can catch up with your wife.”

“Okay, I’ll do that. Thanks.” And Jerry ran up the steps into the hotel.

When he’d gone, Napoleon examined the little guitar player carefully and patted his cheek, saying softly, “Illya… Illya,  what’s happened to you?”

<><><> 

Illya came to lying on a sofa – which had been carefully covered with sheets to prevent marks – in a hotel room. His gaze fell on his partner who was sitting in a chair watching him. He reached a hand up to his head and met a plaster.

“Hi,” said Napoleon.

“What’s the time?”

“After 11.”

“I was coming to meet you.”

“And not paying attention, by the looks of it.”

“I took off my hat, just for a moment, that’s all, and wham – I think someone who doesn’t like beggars threw a rock at me.”

“Did you get the goods?”

“The goods? Oh, the goods. Yes. They're in the lining of my hat… where’s my hat?”

Napoleon reached across to the table and gingerly picked up the hat. “If the rest of you is as filthy as this is, the sooner you’re up to a shower the better.”

“Yes. Did you bring my clothes?”

“Of course.”

“It’ll be nice to sleep in a bed again, too.”

<><><> 

Sitting over breakfast, Julie and Jerry watched the room as well as the view. “There’s that man again,” she whispered. Jerry looked round and waved. The dark man smiled and came over with his bespectacled companion, whose longish blond hair fell forward covering his brow.

“What happened to the little guy?” Jerry enquired.

“Oh, he was fine after they patched him up.”

“Back on the street playing the only tune he knows, I guess,” said Julia.

“A man’s got to live,” said Jerry.

“Oh, you,” she said and turned to the other young man, saying playfully, “Haven’t I seen you before? Are you staying here too?”

“No.” He turned and walked away.

“We’re heading home after breakfast,” said the dark young man. “Would you excuse us?”

Julie watched them take a table some distance away. “Well!” she said. “That blond man – so rude!”

“Didn’t look too well to me,” said Jerry. “Maybe that’s why.”

“You’d forgive anyone anything,” she snapped and glared at the other table.

 “What have you been living on?” asked Napoleon as he sat down.

“Don’t ask. But I warn you, I’m very hungry. I’ve ordered everything,” said Illya.

<><><><> 


End file.
